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Waterville Valley – 12.10.16

“Snow from the sky!” was the call received Friday night on the team slack. We were told we were to ski a time trial and an afternoon OD on fresh snow on Saturday. We were not lied to. The next day we could see, through the windows of “GRETchin,” the snow covered peaks of the Waterville mountains and the groomed trails of road side paths. At times the mountains seemed like pristeen low lying clowds floating over the tops of lower peaks and sinking under the extra blue sky. Wax pun intended.

The first activity of the day was the time trial, decidedly an almost 5K, around and up Tripoli road. The natural snow was incredibly fast and very cold, cold enough that even special green had good kick! We went off in 15 second intervals so the start happened quick, the race almost happened quick. In the classic technique I think every person broke their respective genders 5K track world record, averaging around 13 minutes for the group to complete the course. Afterwards Adam, Erik, and I skied up Osceola for a cool down getting in some acceptable air time on the jumps on the way down.

The sole photo from the day is a screenshot from the 8sec video… before the phone froze

After some cool down skiing after the time trial, we meandered back to the van for lunch. We also reapplied wax because most of us headed back out after eating to do even more classic technique work. We went to a flat/slightly uphill section of trail to work on weight shift without poles. Without poles, we got into groups and did a drill where we would all try to take fewer classic strides than the leader. After this, we had about 20min left to ski farther up the trail and then back to the van. The girls gathered to work with Scottie and learn from each others techniques (ex: Greta taught us all about weight shift). We then skied downhill back to the van, where we would all change into dry clothes for the ride home. We loaded the van with the new ladder and packed all of our bags onto the empty seats in the front.

The ride home was relatively uneventful because we were all tired from the long day of skiing. John managed to fall asleep relatively quickly although he did not beat his record of 1min22sec. On the ride in the morning, we timed John to see how quickly he would fall asleep because he is an extremely talented sleeper – he happened to set a new record.

Fri practice on the rugby field – on real snow, as the sun set and the moon rose. Pretty sweet!!